Wolverine Anime: "Logan"Review

There's no way we could lose here. Even if the story sucked, at least this series would be over. But, surprise surprise, it wasn't half bad.

Shingen brings his A-game right from the jump, using a two-sword technique to follow-up on the hurting he put on Logan's face in the last episode. The action is quick and surprisingly decent, though it's mostly just Logan getting the crap beat out of him while talking smack. Meanwhile, Kurohagi continues to be thoroughly detestable and yet boring, until he reveals he killed his own father. This news is revealed in interesting scene that includes Kurohagi senior's desiccated corpse and a neat little flashback. I hated most of Kurohagi's scenes but this one, I must admit, was well-done.

And then, aha, a twist! Shingen reveals his secret weapon. He's been wearing body armor this whole time! But for some reason he didn't bother to do much for his neck, and that spells his end. It was a nice touch to let Yukio deliver the killing blow, and I was thinking that thread had wrapped up nicely with karma being appropriately repaid. But wait, another twist! It was Yukio who killed Asano so she could bait Logan into helping her. Man, what a duplicitous dame she turned out to be. And I was just starting to like her. But, like her or not, it makes for a very interesting perspective on the whole story, and again shows that Yukio really was the best character in the whole series.

But Kikyo proves to be pretty interesting too, as he takes a dart from Kurohagi's special super poison gun. Kikyo is like, "Pfft. 'tis but a flesh wound." and proceeds to suck the poison out and go about his business. Logan didn't fare so well against the gun before (and later), but Kikyo handles it like a boss. Once again Wolverine gets one-upped in his own series. But at least he gets the girl in the end, right? Right?!?

Nope.

If you like happy endings, or even slightly upbeat endings, you're out of luck here. The climax of this series is quite Shakespearean. Nearly everybody dies, and the hero is left with nothing to show for his efforts. This is not an out-of-character situation for Wolverine (the only happy ending he knows is the kind you get in a Madripoor massage parlor), but it was one big screw you to the viewers who made it all the way through this series just to get handed a depressing and completely unsatisfying ending. If you want to go out on a sad note, that's fine. Just show Wolverine burying Mariko and walking off in the sunset or something. But to end with him holding his dead girlfriend and rage-screaming is overly melodramatic and lazy.

Still, all things considered, it's a decent finale to a not-so-great series. Now that it's over, let's never speak of it again.